Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

"Matrics join the military!" -- that was the call Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota made on Tuesday to last year's matric class.

Lekota told journalists that he wanted more matrics to consider the military as a career, saying defence was about more than warfare, it was also about developing a skilled and disciplined citizenry.

Last week 4200 new recruits -- out of 75,000 applicants -- joined the SA National Defence Force countrywide.

This was the SANDF's largest ever volunteer intake, the minister said.

Lekota said he wanted more applicants and more money in his budget to accommodate at least another 2000 recruits this year.

He hoped to convince the education and labour ministries to make more funds available for him to take in another batch of the recruits in July.

As an alternative, his department would consider borrowing money.

Asked at Waterkloof Airforce Base why he wanted more applicants, Lekota answered that greater numbers would help sensitise the Cabinet, which he thought was not doing enough to help either unemployed youths or young people who could not afford to study.

Lekota also said he was concerned that young people and their parents were not aware of the many opportunities in the military for pilots, navigators, naval combat officers, engineers and accountants.

He said it was not helpful for his department to have programmes for training the youth if information about them was not available to those who qualified.

The department also had a training scheme, called foundation training, for matrics with poor marks who aspired to be pilots and the like.

Over 1100 students had already passed through this scheme and about 200 would be enrolled this year.

Students on this course received basic military training in the mornings and academic training in the afternoons.

At the end of the training year they rewrote those matric subjects in which they had fared poorly.

At the briefing the minister welcomed two young women, from previously disadvantaged backgrounds, into the SA Air Force.

Khanyisile Simelane and Thabisile Mahole, both 18 and from Tsakane at Brakpan, matriculated with average grades last year and Lekota was keen to help them and others in their position.

"A few weeks ago they were in despair... and their career hopes had come to a standstill. Today they are starting a new career in the SA Air Force," Lekota said.